


Even After All Of This

by Ohsoverysensible



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3192779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohsoverysensible/pseuds/Ohsoverysensible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke would never forget her times in the Fade, but nothing prepared her for Adamant. The things that demon had said to her, the way it had warped her mind...It made her realize. She still loved him. Maker have mercy on her, she loved him to death. And she had to find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even After All Of This

She waited for hours in the little market, watching as each peddler set up their stall. She was there at daybreak, and she watched it all progress into a busy little dustbin of people. Hair down, armour hidden away, Katherine Hawke was dressed as normally as she could be. All the way out here in the middle of nowhere, in this small bustling town that had seen better days, surely no one would recognize her face. People knew her name, and she heard it cursed regularly, but her face was still her best kept secret.

Hawke sat on a little box just off in an alleyway. The cloak she had wrapped around her was plain and brown, and she blended nicely with the background. Her hair had grown long, and she'd let it, so it fell down her shoulder like a black waterfall as she stared about her. Waiting.

The tip had to be good. Oh how she prayed she wasn't lied to. Her heart was hammering as she watched people come and go. There were so many faces, young and old, scarred and fresh, sad and happy. She wasn't sure exactly what face  _she_ was. Nervous, perhaps. Or maybe even terrified.

It had been so long.

What would she feel at the sight of him? They'd fled Kirkwall together, back when Anders still believed he'd done what others weren't brave enough to do. She could remember the way everyone, guards and remaining Templars alike, let them leave. She led a group of now apostate mages through the city, Anders at her side but just behind, and no one stopped them. In fact, Hawke felt like Kirkwall wanted them all gone. She and Anders had helped all they could in their travels, defending mages everywhere and trying to calm the rage they'd started. That  _he'd_ started. 

When Hawke spared his life...the look on everyone's face around her was astounding. Some were disappointed, some angry, and others incredibly pitying. She had a feeling they all knew it was going to crash and burn around her, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't kill him, condemn him, or leave him. In the end, she maybe should have, even when he told her he'd understand. But she didn't. No matter how many times he told her to leave him, she didn't.

And the one time he begged her to stay, she left.

Hawke swallowed down her dry throat as people bustled past her easily, carelessly. Some people threw coins at her feet, and she shook her head as she picked them up. Part of her wanted to hand the money to another beggar who truly needed it, but then she could use the money too. Being on the run, even as the Champion, wasn't all it was cut out to be. Even with the Inquisition fighting for and with her in the background, Hawke still wasn't exactly the most popular person.

Then, neither was Anders. Would she know him if she saw him? Would he be in the same kind of hiding that she was? She knew enough to know that after she'd left him, he'd been cast out from the Mages he'd tried so hard to save. So many people saw him as the cause of it all, and not just the last raindrop to break a cracking dam. True he was more like a large pitcher of water, but he was still only a cog in the machine that made this mess. No one seemed to think that way however, and even Hawke had let those thoughts ruin her at times.

Shifting her position where she sat, someone yelled in the market place and people squabbled over prices. Everything was a normal, dreary day, and the clouds refused to move away for more than a few minutes at a time. She sighed, feeling almost near giving up, but it was just a glimpse that fed her terror once more. Like a fan to a flame, the simple sight of a nose and a jawline hidden by a hood had her leaning out of the shadows carelessly.

He had a basket under his arm, braced against his hip, and Hawke thought she saw the signs of water dripping from the bottom. It looked very domestic. Oddly so. And as she watched, eyes wide, he made his way through the market almost strategically keeping his face hidden. She watched him barter with stall owners for vegetables, dried meats, and other average things. If Hawke expected someone to recognize him or scream in his face she was mistaken. No one seemed the wiser. He carried no staff, nor did he seem to wear any other kind of weapon or armour, and Hawke watched him carry on calmly, quietly.

He seemed tired.

And then he turned. The stall far across from her, facing away, let him stand in her direct line of sight. Through bodies passing in front of her, and a few little covered caravans, she could see him. It snapped her heart in two, and she almost immediately wept.

He was wan and pale, with dark circles under his eyes that either suggested further illness or sleepless nights. Or both. She stared at him as he spoke so simply, looking so broken but oddly normal. Other than the look of utter fatigue in his face, he seemed almost his old self again. And that hurt Hawke more than she thought it would. Surely that should make her happy! Seeing him working his way through the market place, casually picking up every day things, it was like Kirkwall all over again.

He loved to run errands. She always imagined it was his secret way of thanking her for taking him in. She'd come in one day and he'd have all the fruit she liked cut up and ready on the table for her. Or he'd have found her a book she was particularly keen on, or picked up more ink for her letters to Carver. Though he rarely replied to them. It was so sweet to have Anders running around behind her just picking up her pieces, even when she failed to do the same for him.

Though he'd betrayed her trust more than once now. Seeing him here meant that he'd been banished from the war he'd so wanted to start.

Hawke got up as Anders made his way through the crowds, following cautiously behind and trying to look inconspicuous. He still stood proud, shoulders back and head mostly up, and that made her a little happier to see. When would she approach him? When would she appear and smile at him with some kind of concerned tilt to her lips? Not in this crowd, Hawke decided, and so she kept quiet as he wound his way through the maze.

When he ducked through an alley, she wondered if he knew he was being followed. The market was behind them now, and they snaked their apparently seperate ways through the narrow streets. She kept back a little ways, watching him go with purpose to some unknown destination. The alley was dark, and as she stood at the mouth of it she could just barely see the slightly sunnier exit down the way. Anders walked through the shadows, but in the distance someone cried out. And he stopped dead in his tracks.

Far ahead at the other end of the alley, three men ran past. Hawke thought she heard echoed laughter coming from the group. Following on their heals, crying and screaming, a young boy wiped something off his face. "Stop! Please!" he yelled. "They stole my money!" And in the next moment he was running after the others, and Hawke was frowning.

But Anders remained stock still. If Hawke listened closely, she could swear she heard the sound of hard breathing.

And then a cry out. It echoed off the walls of the alley, and before her she watched Anders double over and drop his basket. It was his cry she heard, and she covered her mouth as she watched him fall to his knees, nearly writhing, as that tell-tale glow emanated from under his cloak. "No!" he yelled through gritted teeth, but it only seemed to make it worse, and Hawke felt tears in her eyes.

He hit the floor, sprawling out on the ground, and Hawke gasped. She felt her nails digging into her cheek, but she kept silent, watching like a guardian as he almost convulsed. She should have run to his side, but she couldn't. Something kept her feet stuck to the ground as if she'd been mounted there like a statue.

And then it hit her like a tidal wave. He was trying to resist. He was _fighting_ against Justice.

The moment seemed to pass, and as if with practiced fingers Anders gathered himself up along with his basket and struggled to walk a little faster. Echoing off the walls, Hawke could hear him breathing heavily. Once he rounded the corner of the alley, Hawke set her jaw and followed fast after him, brushing the tears off her cheeks.

On the outskirts of the town, far enough away that Hawke had to linger in the shadows as he marched forth through the sun, Anders made his way to his makeshift home. A little, dilapidated house he rented from an old woman who couldn't see. It wasn't much, but it was safe. And discrete. And far away from almost any sign of trouble. 

He was shaking, which he was getting used to. Some food and drink would help, he told himself, but the attack still raked his brain. He felt panicked, as if any moment he would go down again. He'd been getting better at resisting, but he could still distinctly remember coming to after Justice had taken over. Anders was hardly ever conscious now when Justice won over his own strength, and sometimes the things he would wake up to...

Anders shoved his door open and threw the basket down on the old rickety table, sighing as he slammed the door behind him, and he slid down to sit on the floor. He took the hood from his face and leaned his head back with a sigh, the little tail of his hair pressing into his neck. He'd hacked it a little shorter only the other day, and he was still getting used to it. With another sigh he closed his eyes.

Little did he know that, at the window, someone was subtly watching. It had been a while since he had to worry about spies, and he surely wasn't thinking about it now. 

Hawke watched his face as if it were the only sight in the world she wanted to see. She missed his cheeks, and the way he would nuzzle his peachfuzz face into her neck at night, making her squeal with laughter. She missed his humour, which he let loose only when they were together. He had such a silly mannerism sometimes that it made her side hurt with laughing, and she could see in his eyes that she made him feel just as care free.

But this face, this sad tired face that looked so downhearted...He took a few more deep breaths as Hawke watched, and from the distance the sound of a little meow echoed.

She grinned and covered her lips again as a little white cat made its way from around a corner, slowly approaching Anders where he sat. It butted its fuzzy head against his hand, and Hawke watched his lip curl up in a tiny smile just barely. He opened his eyes at last and looked down at the small animal, lazily lifting his hand to pet it gently. He got lost in the little things love for him, and it was heart wrenching to watch, but Hawke stayed hidden.

Hawke was afraid. What would he think to see her here? What would he say to her? Did he even  _want_ to see her? After what she did to him, the way she'd left it...people had sent word to her letting her know that it destroyed him further than he was already damaged, but she couldn't go back. She couldn't bring herself to agree with her passionate decisions to save him, to keep him away from all prosecution. 

She gave her life for him. And he only gave her anxiety and death.

But looking at him now...How sweet and kind he looked.

But he flinched, and the cat moved away casually as he gritted his teeth and put his head in his hands. Eyes shut tight, he sat there a moment before little tendrils of blue light started to circle around him. Hawke watched in terror as Anders did whatever he could to keep Justice at bay, to keep it back and controlled. And it frightened her to see that it was almost a loosing battle.

Groaning and tensing and trying to  _breathe_ , Anders struggled. It was a choking feeling, as if someone had their hands around his neck and were trying to knock him out. He took in large gulps of breath whenever he could but the room was spinning. He could feel himself drifting away, being thrown into the cage of his memories, and he yelled out for it to stop. It was all he could ever do, yelling for help, as if someone could hear him or as if Justice would somehow recede at his pleas.

As if he could bargain with the Spirit he'd corrupted.

Laying on the floor, clawing at his body and his clothes, Anders vaguely thought to himself...this is it. He knew, somewhere in his heart, that Justice would win someday. No matter what he did, Justice would take him, either controlling his body forever or killing Anders outright and making him a walking corpse. Or worse. And there were days Anders was almost hoping for this. There were days, many days, when Anders just wanted death. Where he longed for it.

It's what he deserved.

But the door blew open, and as he struggled there on the ground he felt hands. They grabbed at his arms and rolled him over, and he tried to fight them off in fear, until he heard a voice. Soothing and kind, it shushed him sweetly yet sniffled with sadness.

His eyes opened, and he looked deep into Hawke's face. His eyes were clear, wide and bright with terror and sadness she didn't understand, but deep in his pupils she could see the blossoms of a sharp blue light.  And she held him.

But he pulled away from her. "No,  _no!_ " Anders yelled, throwing himself from her kneeling form as if she were poison. His voice raked his throat as he moved from her. "Do not trap me here again,  _please!"_

Shaking herself now, Hawke reached out tentatively for him. "Anders it's me," she said slowly.

But he shook his head at her. "Don't cage me in my memories, I beg of you."

"I'm here, Anders, _please_ ," Hawke said with a frown. It broke her heart to see him like this, and he'd broken her heart many times before. But staring at her in fear was something she never wanted him to do. And she knew it had been the same wish for him. She'd never feared him, but she'd disliked him once. For a time. Which perhaps was worse.

Anders held his hand up in front of him as if to ward her off. His chest was heaving, and Hawke couldn't tell whether or not he was still in the grips of a fight. "Please let it fade," he said in a harsh whisper, almost spitting the words at her. "Let it all fade, please,  _please..._ "

She couldn't take it. In an instant she was across the floor and at his side as he lay there on the ground. Leaning on his arm, she reached forward and put a hand to his cheek. He was so warm, too warm, but she could feel his peach fuzz on her fingers again. The way his jaw clenched and unclenched when he was thinking or when he was concerned. Or lying to her. It was like a dream having his skin under her hands once more, and at her touch he gave a small, strangled little gasp. And the blue in his eyes faded away.

Hawke smiled through the pain in her eyes. "I'm here, Anders," she said. "It's going to be alright."

At last, with his jaw hanging loose and his eyes twitching all over her face, he reached up and placed his hand over hers. He almost laughed at the shock of truly feeling her there. "You...You can't really be here," he breathed.

"I am," she said, running her thumb over his skin and smiling tightly. "I am, I promise."

He gave another odd laugh that could have been a sob in another life. "Katherine," he breathed.

How long had it been, Hawke wondered, since she heard her name on anyone's lips. Her first name. A name that had turned so intimate and rare during her time in Kirkwall. She gulped and sat down off her knees as Anders continued to stare in awe and wonder.

"Why?" Anders finally whispered as their eyes locked for what felt like hours. " _Why?_ "

But she couldn't answer, not when he was looking at her with such complete and utter devotion. As if he could die right now just because she graced him with her presence. 

When she didn't answer however, he shook his head at her. "Why would you come back to this disaster?" he said, his voice cracked and dry.

She frowned as if he'd told her to leave. "I..." But no, she wouldn't explain yet. Not yet. There was so much to say, and he was so damaged here. She couldn't do this now. With a reserved sigh she scooted closer to him. "Let me help you up," she said, reaching for his shoulders.

He pulled away. "No. I can manage," he said, struggling even to turn over. He could hardly even get to his knees.

Hawke frowned. "Let me help you," she said.

"No," Anders said again. "I won't ever ask for your help again," he told her. It sounded like it was a promise he'd made himself, something he repeated in times of weakness like a mantra. It would explain why he never came looking for her.

But Hawke shook her head at him. "You're not asking, I'm offering," she said. He looked up at her with narrowed eyes but they were soft and sad. She could almost sense how disquiet his mind was right now. "Don't martyr yourself," Hawke said, and the moment the words were out of her mouth she realized how much they stung.

Anders swallowed and dropped his head. He sighed and didn't fight her, and he worked his way to his knees with her assistance. Slowly they stood together, Anders using the table nearby as a crutch, and when they faced each other he leaned on it heavily.

All he could do was stare at her. "I can't believe you...It's been so long," he said dismally.

Hawke nodded. "I..." But she was so bad at speaking to him now. It really had been too long, and she couldn't remember what they were like together. Before it all, she could remember the easiness with which they conversed, but now it felt tense. As if maybe she shouldn't bring up the past at all now. As if all it would do is hurt them both. "It has been some time," Hawke finally said lamely.

Anders looked up at her with a little half-frowning smile. "Yes," he said before swallowing hard. "You look so much the same and yet so different."

"And you," she said as if this were polite small talk. "You look..."

He gave a soft breathy laugh. 

Hawke sighed. "What have you been doing to yourself, Anders?" she asked gently.

He blinked a few times before meeting her eyes. "Trying."

"Trying?"

"To be the man you wanted me to be."

She looked away with a shaking sigh. She could feel the tears threatening her eyes once more and she didn't feel like letting him see those just yet. For nearly a year she'd been so strong, so independent. She'd never been good at being alone, and yet she'd managed. But now, with those eyes of his on her, it was like she was innocent Kitty Hawke again. Anders had always made her feel like she was younger, as easy going and playful as she had been back before she even knew him. When life was scary but easier to handle.

Now it was just terrifying.

"Please," Anders said, fearing the way she looked away from him. "I don't mean to make you sad over it. It's...just something I say." He looked guilty when she looked back at him, and that only made it worse. He looked at her with a mock casualness she knew he placed on his face for her benefit. "I've heard rumours about what you've been doing."

"I imagine so," Hawke said stiffly.

"The Inquisition...last I heard," Anders said.

"Yes."

"Before that I heard you were dead."

She stared at him. "People say that about me all the time," Hawke said. "I would think you'd get used to those rumours."

"I did," Anders said. "I mean I was used to them. I won't ever believe anything without proof but...you can imagine how hearing that would...make me feel."

She gave a bitter laugh. "I can imagine, yes."

Anders smiled at her softly, weakly. "I always follow up on those rumours," he told her, and she smiled a little back at him. "People think  _I'm_ dead it seems," Anders went on a little bitterly. "Probably for the best," he said, reaching for the back of a chair. But he put too much weight on it, and it fell back away from him. Hawke bolted out and caught him under the arms, relieved to feel how heavy he was. If he felt light, she would have panicked.

He sighed at himself as she helped steady him, reaching back for the sturdiness of the table.

"Sit down," she almost demanded.

"I prefer to stand," Anders said, but he was lost in her touch and in how close she was. Maker, it was amazing.

But Hawke frowned. "Please sit, Anders. For me."

He did. And once he was settled she picked up the fallen chair and sat in it herself. The door was still open, letting in a cool breeze which picked up the slight sounds of the village in the distance. And they sat there, looking at each other and then away. Then back again.

"How did you find me?" Anders asked after a silence.

Hawke had never been a particularly skilled liar. "I always have eyes looking for you," she admitted, and he seemed conflicted by the statement. Did that mean she was concerned for him? Or concerned  _about_ him? "I've never once been informed of your death."

Anders looked up through his lashes at her. "How much do you know then?" he asked.

"Enough," she said. He shook his head and dropped it into his hands as he leaned on the table. She leaned towards him. "I never believe the lies. The propaganda spread about you. I tell everyone I meet," Hawke said. "I tell them all that in the end you were sorry."

"Was I?" he asked bitterly, bringing his head up to look at her with wide almost panicked eyes. "You saw what I was like. I had so little remorse for it all. It drove everything mad, it drove  _you_ away from me. How can you tell people that? How can you try to redeem me?"

She shouldn't have told him. His sudden weak flare of anger worried her, and she watched his eyes closely. "Because I know better," she said. "I know that it was different then, just as it is different now."

He shook his head at her. "It never should have been this way," he said softly, sadly.

Hawke was almost surprised. "You don't really think that," she said, as if feeding him those words.

"When I heard about the Conclave," he said, staring at the table as if remembering the day. "I thought...there.  _That's_ what she would have wanted. That was the peace she sought, not the...not the carnage and  _murder_ I inflicted. Not the chaos  _I_ caused."

"Anders," Hawke whispered, reaching out to gently touch her fingers to the back of his hand. "The Conclave wouldn't have ever happened if not for what you did."

"What I did," he said harshly, "was destroy the lives of thousands. I see it now, as I should have before." Anders looked at her. "I've had this conversation with you so many times, love," he breathed. Eyes closed, he looked lost in pain and regret. "What I made you do. What I did to you. I turned you into someone you never wanted to be, all because of your love. I took your love and I used it. I let it fuel me, make me confident, and look where it took us." 

He was twitching and frowning, and Hawke bit her lips. "Anders..."

"You were never a fighter," he said. "Nor a rebel. I've been one my whole life, and I let it poison you. How can you be here at all? How can you ever stand to be in the same room as me?"

"Because I love you!" 

They both froze, and the look of strange anger on Anders' face faded to a blank stare. His jaw even hung loose, just as Hawke's seemed to. She blinked at him, gulped, shook her head...

"While I was away," she whispered. "I...was reminded by something  _horrible_ happening that I loved you. It was always in the back of my mind. Always. But I realized that I was running from it, doing whatever I could to pretend it wasn't true but..." Hawke looked up at him. "I will never  _not_ love you. So, so much. I couldn't keep running."

Anders looked like he was going to snap. The way his face contorted as she spoke, as if he almost pitied her. As if he hated himself for making her even the slightest bit unhappy. She poured out her heart to him, and with a sigh, all he said was, "You should have kept running."

Hawke inhaled sharp. "Why?" she breathed

He was shaking, body and voice. Anders lifted his hand a fraction, as if going to touch her face, but he put it back down. "I love you," he breathed. She smiled, but he wasn't finished. "But I took your life from you. I ruined everything you had, destroyed your world and forced you to leave it behind. You should never want to see me again."

"Doesn't it mean anything that I came back?" Hawke asked almost desperately.

Anders smiled bitterly. "It means the world," he admitted. "But I'm a nightmare. A bad dream you had once. Why would you want to relive it?"

Hawke knew all of these thoughts, these feelings he was spouting were emotions he'd stored up over the past months. Now that she was here, truly here, they were rising from his heart like smoke from a fire. And it was upsetting him, angering him again, and even though his feelings of vengeance were almost for himself his eyes began to turn. That static feeling Hawke hadn't felt on his skin for a long time sprang up, and she gripped his hand.

"I always do what I must to help," Hawke said as he shut his eyes tight and grimaced. "It was a nightmare that showed me how much I missed you. How afraid I was for you. You didn't ruin anything, Anders, I was just trying to help you!"

"I took your life from you!" he said, eyes opening in a flash of blue light. He slammed his free fist down on the table, and his eyes flared blue at her. "I deserve no kind words said about me from anyone! I should die by your hand!"

Hawke launched forward and threw her arms around his shoulders, pulling him as close to her as she could get him in their seated positions. The magical charge in the air surrounded her, and Anders gave a shocked gasp at her sudden proximity. She could feel the tension in his body immediately fizzle out, as if he'd been holding his breath, and with a pounding heartbeat he raked air into his lungs.

"I would be the last person in the world to take your life," she whispered, shutting her eyes and squeezing him hard.

Eventually, with an almost crying sigh, Anders let his weak arms circle around Hawke. "I'm so sorry," he breathed. Hawke could hear the hints of tears in his voice, and it sparked her own.

"It's alright," she said softly to him, letting her head rest on his shoulder warmly. Holding him was so familiar, and the memories flooded her mind when his arms went around her.

"I don't know what to _do_ ," he told her, his hold on her growing tighter and more confident.

"We never know what to do," she joked lightly, pulling back to see his face. He kept his hands on her waist, and the way Anders stared at her...Like she was the answer to every problem that he had ever encountered or created. And Maker, if he wasn't right. "We always figure it out," Hawke went on. "And we will. Together. I'm not going to leave you."

Anders was frowning, but her words still gave him strength. "I will never be able to deserve you," he said.

She put a hand to his cheek, watching his eyes close in something like pure bliss at her touch. "You already do."


End file.
